It seemed like every one of his 3's hit the front of the rim and still swished. That is some arc.

Why did Sheed choose to under the pick every time? He should know what Okur likes to do. He basically got a taste of his own medicine. The only difference was that Memo wasn't yelling "he can't guard me" to our bench after each make.

Hey, be realistic. This is how Flip will play this team in the playoffs. 8 man rotation. Amir, AA will play in GT if there is any in the playoffs. Hermann and Dixon will be lucky if they were given just 1 minute even in GT in the playoffs cuz Flip will only let them play if we lead by at least 25 pts with 1:30 left in the game.

Flip's comment on the players: too many 1 on 1 ball on the offense. Good gosh Flip! You are the coach who should be telling them that and and draw up plays that stop them from going 1 on 1. If they do not listen to you, bench them like how you bench Amir. What an idiot! What is so difficult in doing so esp you are the 'offensive god' coach out there.

Maybe Sheed was upset with the rotation that he purposely did not show up for the game. If I was Sheed, I get myself ejected and this will force Flip to play the bench.

It seemed like every one of his 3's hit the front of the rim and still swished. That is some arc.

Why did Sheed choose to under the pick every time? He should know what Okur likes to do. He basically got a taste of his own medicine. The only difference was that Memo wasn't yelling "he can't guard me" to our bench after each make.

Is it KGREG who is always quoting Bruce Bowen on his mentality of fighting through screens? If your job for the night is to set screens on Billups, then you are in for a very easy night of work. Okur was not just standing out there waiting for the ball in the 4th. They ran a screen & pop between he and Willaims that Sheed had to help on. Billups just stopped every time the screen was set. Every time.

How many shots in a row would Rip have to miss for Flip to forget about the 6 straight he hit in the 1st to 2nd quarter, 30?

Did anyone else watch Memo against SA in the WCF last year? I don't think he "brought it" once.

This game highlights how un-athletic DET's backcourt is. Why they run plays for Billups to take Williams to the paint, not get an inch of space and upfake is beyond me.

Two time losers last night, lost the game, shortened the bench.

I am glad Flip didn't call timeouts last night. Have you seen the plays they run out of them?

I've heard that Flip is going to be in the next I'm Scared Air Jordan spot. 'I'm scared to play AJ against Denver & Utah in February.'

Well, the first quarter and half, the pistons were awesome. The rest of the game was still fun to watch. Few points need to be addressed:

· Memo’s 3’s… we could live with. But Melsap’s inside game was almost perfect. Sheed had so many minutes. Well, remember that was third game in 4 nights.

· I read lot of posts arguing not having AJ in the rotation. I am almost sure there was a reason he did not play. I am not defending Flip. Actually, I keep mentioning that I am not a fan of Flip, but we have to give him the credit that AJ is getting lot of minutes in every game. So, let us wait and see why he did not get his minutes this game.

· Also related to AJ: are you guys telling me that the pistons will lose a game if they don’t play AJ??? Well that is lame. I agree, Pistons will lose a series, will lose in the long run, or lose the chip if they don’t play the bench. But not playing AJ in one game could mean a loss??? Well let me hear this from Sheed, Rip and CB (who are paid the 10’s of millions) before I believe it.

· Max game is back. I think he should be starting and Dice should come with the bench. Dice should neither start nor finish games. His 30+ minutes are way too much for his age and his old knees.

Pregame:
Was curious about what kind of reception we'd get walking in with our Pistons gear. There were actually quite a few other fans with Pistons gear on, and it was fun to acknowledge each other on our way to our seats. We were sitting a few rows from the very back, not the greatest sets, but some of the cheapest (lol). It was very fun to walk in and see our team lying around stretching, shooting around, etc. I have been to maybe one other Pistons game, which was in the Palace, and we came late, so it was cool to watch them warmup. A girl and guy were sitting in front of us, the guy had on a Brewer jersey, the girl a red Rip jersey. During the national anthem, one girl who looked like she had just come from happy hour was screaming "Go Pistons!", until a Jazz fan mustered up all his courage and yelled a half-hearted "Show some respect!" and the girl's companion shushed her. I was dying laughing.

First quarter:
Absolutely controlling the tempo early. Our guys looked confident and rested. From the get-go, hard-nosed defense and good shot selection (for the most part). We seemed to stay within our offense, and if we didn't, we were hitting our shots. We started out the game exactly the way we needed to, shutting the crowd up. I have been to a Jazz game two other times, I have NEVER heard that building as quiet as that first quarter. My buddy and I were amazed at how dead the place was, as the Pistons built up a nice lead. People even shouted "SHEED" whenever he got the ball. The Pistons fans in the building were doing our darndest to make noise, and you could hear us, too.

Second quarter:
I think Maxiell may have first come in in the first quarter, but I was way impressed with him in the first half, if only because he was making all his free throws. Flip was mixing the bench in with the starters, and it was working. I was wating for AJ, but to no avail. Embarrasingly for me, I had to hang on to my game program, because I realized I don't know half of the Pistons jersey numbers anymore, especially with the new guys. On TV, it's easier to just recognize them without the numbers. It was easy to be confident, and my buddy and I kept saying that it looked like the Pistons didn't even have to play great offense the rest of the way, as long as they kept up their stellar defensive effort. Forcing lots of turnovers, building a good lead. The Jazz fans were starting to get in it a little bit since their guys weren't missing all their shots like in the first quarter.

Second half:
I don't even want to remember the individual quarters here, it's too painful. As time went on, I started to wonder more and more why Flip didn't sub anyone in. The entire starting unit played almost the entire third quarter, with a bit of Max towards the end. Still no sign of Amir. The Jazz (Millsap) were ABUSING us in the paint. It was not pretty to watch. All the shots Rip was making in the first half were not falling in the second, and all the shots the Jazz were missing in the first, they were making in the second. Sheed seemed to kind of poop out after a while. I felt like Chauncey was in his own world for parts of the half, and the offense was erratic at best. Flip was not even calling timeouts to quiet the crowd when we needed to stop their runs, let alone giving our best players a breather. We managed to keep them from getting ahead for a while, but it's hard when you just stop playing defense. It was difficult to watch the Jazz go anywhere they wanted and then make crazy-ace shots from everywhere, even for the plays that we were playing defense. Definitely felt like the home-cooking got turned up to the max in the second half. Not for the entire half, but there was a string of plays when practically every time we went down the court, we got whistled for charging or some other offensive penalty, some of the calls I felt were just atrocious. The crowd was horrendously loud, and the Pistons were not making us proud. In the fourth, I kept waiting for Flip to sub the starters out so that he could bring them in rested at around the 5-minute mark, but time kept going and going, and almost no bench. I couldn't see how we were going to turn up the heat on the Jazz if we were getting more and more tired, and they were bringing in fresh starters. Then Memo started pulling three-balls out of his butt and the crowd went from deafening to sonic-boom eruptions. Many fans were spontaneously combusting in fiery explosions after his third three-point shot inside of about 2 minutes. The Pistons were sucking the life out of us, yet still we cheered hard for them. Then Jarvis lost the ball between his legs, and the game was over.

With that said, I am willing to wave that one off. I left the game not overly worried about the Pistons season, but sorely disappointed that they let a won game go like that. They didn't merely get outplayed, they seemed to stop playing. I'm still a little ticked about some of the bad calls in the second, but that's no excuse. How could we have let that one go?

All opinions aside. There is nothing wrong with spouting off about a loss to a team that we have not beaten in 5 years, had an 18 points lead over late in the 3rd, and a game in which the new energy guy was mysteriously benched for no apparent reason.

Did Utah present any match-up difficulties that were out of the ordinary? To me, it seems like the only unusual match ups were that they have a 7' three point shooter who would be a bench player for us, a young energy player in Milsap who would be a DNP for us, and a pretty good point guard. Nothing to freak out about.

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Now, I've not been this pissed off during a regular season loss since the Bulls game earlier this year, and this is pushing Game 5 of the 2005 finals mad.

But I understood why they didn't play AJ. Utah's system, and how we chose 2 defend it, are horrible for that inexperienced of a big, how much switching and back cutting and hiding on the baseline was going on?

Now what I would have done was put AJ out there with 4 of the starters for a few mins at a time and just run straight man to man, leave him on Memo and tell him to NEVER leave him, I don't care if somebody else is getting a layup...

How is not guarding Memo at the 3 point line ever the right move? I don't get it. It's beyond automatic. Never ever leave him, EVER.

You guys may laugh but the game was lost on 2 missed free throws in the 3rd Q by Sheed. we were up 15 effing points and sheed stepped to the line and had a chance to put us up 17 and completely stem the tide... Instead he misses a pair, D Williams scores a bunny and the anti-run is on.

That was a playoff preview guys, sad to say it, but it was, we went back to 'exploiting mismatches' and C$ getting baited into weak charges, giving up HUGE runs and having long periods of looking helpless on defense.

This should have been an ultra cakewalk, but we closed EVERY QUARTER like crap. It was something like 31 to 16 with about a min left in the first, it ends up being 31 to 21, Utah closes the half strong to get it down to 11 from 18, Utah OWNS US to end the 3rd, We have a slim lead with about 4:00 to go in the 4th... Utah scores on 5 of 6 possesions, we lose by 6+.

This is all to a team that probably won't even sniff the WCF and a team that lost to effing Minnesota the night before and then traveled home.

yeah the officiating sucked, but it's always going to suck for a team without a trancendent star.

This team continues to suck vs the High Screen and roll, and since moving screens no longer exist on the screens on the ballhandler, that is what you'll see 85% of the time in the playoffs and... We'll continue to suck against it.

Yep, I'm melting down, and rightfully so. This was a litmus test. FAIL, we are supposed to break teams with our execution down the stretch and tag shooters... The opposite happened.

Sheed is probably my favorite Piston, but he lost this game, flat out.

1. the 2 huge missed FT's.
2. Not covering Memo, any part of the time. MAKE HIM DRIBBLE
3. Jacking up a ton of threes and missing ALL of them.

Good points by all after we had a night to sleep on it. If Coynejeremy sat in the stands and noticed the Pistons sucking air in the third, why didn't Flip, TP, Curry or Cowens notice it?

Millsap "big babied" Dice and then Max and Sheed for six minutes before he sat down with foul trouble. This could have been a blowout if he had played the next 5-6 minutes. All he did was bring them all the way back and once the game was tied, the Jazz and their fans knew that they were going to punk the Pistons again like have done 16 out of the last 18 games. Can we get Memo back as our center??

We can't win them all and any lead is possible to overcome, but if you are supposedly a championship caliber team, you should not allow any team to comeback from being 18 points down. The Pistons had a 13 point lead in the third qtr with 9 mins left and that should been safe too, but as Flip said, "we went one on one midway thru the 3rd qtr and then stopped playing defense.well why did he call a time out tell them to either stop it, or put in someone who had some legs???

The stat that punctuates this is the 3 assists in the second half...yeah three:(

Despite all the Flip bashing, the Pistons finish 9-3 in February and since this isbetter than the celtics, 9-4 or the Magic 8-5, Flip probably gets coach of the month again.

Another meaningless stat: In the pistons the three losses for February, the #103 is the key.....103-85 loss to the Magic, , 103-98 to the Bucs and 103 95 to the Jazz...so don't let a team score 103 and maybe they win

Some good discussion. This was a bad loss because of the coaching pattern--not the loss itself.

No, Rip wasn't just missing later. He and the Piston offense was being pushed back off the ball by the defense. Teams have done this in the playoffs to us. We apparantly still have no answer. No, it is not just being tired on this aspect. We just fall apart. We have all seen it.

Memo did not just go off. He was allowed to go off. Sheed was to blame but ultimately it is the coach. We are not talking about Kobe here. Memo cannot drive. No excuse.

You didn't have to be at the game to notice Milsap was scoring easily inside and that Dyss did not have the quickness to handle him. If the coaching staff cannot pull a player for match ups, what does that leave for the playoffs? No team is that good that they don't have to make adjustments during a game.

When the starters are on the floor we play at a slower pace. We should have at least get AJ in the game to change the pace as we are losing our lead slowly but surely. A few blocks or shot alterations was all we needed to stop the run and pull out the victory. I still can't beleive "WE" get no explanation from anyone as to why AJ got a DNP.

Memo did not just go off. He was allowed to go off. Sheed was to blame but ultimately it is the coach. We are not talking about Kobe here. Memo cannot drive. No excuse.

You didn't have to be at the game to notice Milsap was scoring easily inside and that Dyss did not have the quickness to handle him. If the coaching staff cannot pull a player for match ups, what does that leave for the playoffs? No team is that good that they don't have to make adjustments during a game.

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Its all about adjustments and the issue with Memo taking four-three pointers in less than two minutes and hitting three of them means that the time frame may have been to short to react to and on one on the floor or the coaches yelled out "PUT A BODY ON MEMO"...epecially to tired players...

They had plenty of time to adjust with figuring out what to do with Millsap....But nope, he was able to duplicate his effort in the 4th on what he had done in the 3rd... as neither the coaches or players adjusted..

Other teams see that and will exploit it in every playoff game until they are able to force a game 4 loss on us whether it is the 2nd, 3rd or 4th round if Flip is lucky enough to ge there